Italian Renaissance Artist. His work is characterized by its muscular figures, dramatic gestures, and the bold use of perspective in the Mannerist style, while maintaining color and light attributable to the Venetian School. He was born Jacopo Comin in Venice, Republic of Venice, in present-day Italy, the oldest of 21 children but was also known as Jacopo Robusti in his youth, stemming from his father's defense of the gates of Padua against the imperial troops during the War with the League of Cambrai (1509 to 1516). His father was a dyer, or tintore by trade, from where he received the nickname of Tintoretto. As a child he began painting on the dyer's walls and his father took notice and around 1533 sent him to the art studio of the famed Italian painter Titian to determine if he possessed any artistic talent. After ten days Titian sent him home for reasons that are unclear. He sought no further teaching but studied on his own account with intensity and laborious zeal, working by night as well as by day. He studied models of artist Michelangelo's "Dawn," "Noon," "Twilight," and "Night" and soon became proficient at wax and clay modeling. He became a close friend of painter Andrea Schiavone, with who he assisted in wall-paintings. Around 1546 he painted for the Church of the Madonna dell'Orto three of his leading works; the "Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple," the "Worship of the Golden Calf," and the "Last Judgment" (which was repainted). He accepted commission on a cost only basis for the latter two in order to make himself more prominent. In 1548 he was commissioned to paint four pictures in the Scuola Grande di San Marco; the "Finding of the Body of Saint Mark," the Saint Mark's Body Brought to Venice," "Saint Mark Rescuing a Saracen from Shipwreck," and the "Miracle of the Slave," which were well-received and finally established his place as a renown painter. In 1560, after competing with four other artists and being selected to perform the work, he began his labor-intensive painting of the walls and ceilings of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, a project that would take 17 years to complete, with over 50 paintings at the scoula and adjacent Church of San Rocco. Among his notable works there are the "Crucifixion," the "Plague of Serpents," the "Paschal Feast," "Moses Striking the Rock," "Adam and Eve," the "Visitation," "the Adoration of the Magi," "the Massacre of the Innocents," "the Agony in the Garden," "Christ Before Pilate," "Christ Carrying His Cross," the "Assumption of the Virgin," and "Christ Curing the Paralytic." Later, in the Sala Delio Scrutinio, he painted the "Capture of Zara from the Hungarians in 1346 amid a Hurricane of Missiles," "Venice, Queen of the Sea," and the "Espousal of Saint Catherine to Jesus;" in the Sala dell Anticollegio he painted "Bacchus, with Ariadne Crowned by Venus," the "Three Graces and Mercury," "Minerva Discarding Mars," and the "Forge of Vulcan;" and in the Antichiesetta "Saint George and Saint Nicholas, with Saint Margaret" and "Saint Jerome and Saint Andrew. Perhaps the crowning achievement of his life was the vast "Paradise," a 74 feet by 30 feet painting, reputed to be the largest painting ever accomplished on canvas, begun in 1588. Upon its completion, he rested and never painted any other significant work. In 1594 he became ill with severe stomach pains along with a fever that prevented him from sleeping and almost eating for two weeks and he died in Venice at the age of 75 and was entombed next to his favorite daughter, Marietta, who had died four years earlier.